With thanks to Will Tudor for pointing us towards it. Really – have these people got nothing better to do? It’s pathetic. And as for the 100% positive feedback – either this is the first time they’ve tried this trick, or there’s a hell of a lot of gullible idiots in the world…

It’s pretty reprehensible behaviour, but it seems odd that those bidding for it wouldn’t have cottoned on! Perhaps they’re merchandise-orientated rather than the kind of fan who buys the full DVD releases.

Website wallpaper for the artwork, text from the site’s ‘About’ section as the copy, a half-arsed Paint layout, no Registered trademark symbol on the logo, made-up cue titles, and a blatant rip of the DVDs to create the damn thing (why would we have put out a CD of two random series music?!), no GNP logo…

With regard to the soundtracks, I, er, must confess that I have one of the fake CDs, volume 3, for series 5 and 6. Saw it at the Cinema Store (who were selling it in complete ignorance of its fraudulent origin) and pounced on it like a starving man on a corn-fed space weevil.

I love the music for Red Dwarf, would love to get the official soundtrack if it were ever made available (Hear that Ellard?) and don’t currently have the equipment or know-how to rip the stuff off the DVDs. I won’t do the internet cash thingy out of respect for the composer’s copyright, but seeing it just sitting there, in the shop, right in front of me…

>would love to get the official soundtrack if it were ever made available (Hear that Ellard?)

I think there are rights issues that mean this will never happen. The DVD cues are the best we’ll get.

>and don?t currently have the equipment or know-how to rip the stuff off the DVDs.

All you need is a computer. Whack the DVD in your drive, and play the sound out, capturing it using audio editing software. If you haven’t got any, Audacity is completely free and will do the job. Yes, it means you have to sit there listening to it play while it does it, but it’s basically the same as taping music off the telly through a tape recorder (and come on, we’ve ALL done that – it’s how I first got a copy of Tongue Tied back in the day!)

Its quite old is this CD. I have seen it around for years on eBay. I also suspect the seller is totally oblivious to its originality. Otherwise it wouldn’t be listed as a featured listing, that would have cost him extra for a start. I know its no excuse, but this seems innocent looking at the facts. Maybe he should be informed?

> > would love to get the official soundtrack if it were ever made available (Hear that Ellard?)

> I think there are rights issues that mean this will never happen. The DVD cues are the best we?ll get.

Indeed. My understanding is that the legal fees required would eradicate any small profit a niche release like this could make.

As to the old artwork – yeah, it’s funny all that. Dwarf went through a bizarre period around Series V and VI where the ‘blocky’ logo was changed for the new one, but it was never ‘officially’ worked up. The story I heard was that Doug got sick of the messy, home-made versions appearing everywhere and sat down with a designer, locking it all down once and for all, drawing it out himself.

May not be true, but regardless – the ‘official’ logo, the one that’s now a registered trademark, was a pretty late development. (Not the logos on the V and VI shows for example.) Of course, much of this was before everyone had a copy of Photoshop to hand…

You mean the one that has Red Dwarf written much as before, but moves the ellipse around to be the same height, sticking out at the sides rather than top right and bottom left?

It’s used on the spine of the two script books, I think – but no, there’s no proper Illustrator file. I don’t know if the FX guys mocked it up themselves for use on props (just as costume did with their variant of the RD logo shown on Rimmer’s jacket in Marooned).

The Omnibus Edition has the worst logo, the elipse doesn’t strike through as it does with all the rest, it overlaps in places, very strange. Most of the logo’s I have, the elipse cuts through the top of the A, but some move left or right of this point. The only other one that doesn’t follow the same style, is the audience tickets from the show themselves. The logo is overlapped again with black.

Yes, I wondered after I’d posted this piece whether the seller just didn’t know. But, then, I think I was put off by the slightly desperate-sounding description text. It IS official, HONEST!

And it’s a very good point that the now official logo wasn’t used on any actual Dwarf series until VII! I knew that V had a weird early version, but I’d completely forgotten about VI. I really must write that article on the logos at some point.

Still, the biggest mystery with the logo is surely wondering why the hell the Red Dwarf Night continuity used the sans-serif version…

You mean the one that has Red Dwarf written much as before, but moves the ellipse around to be the same height, sticking out at the sides rather than top right and bottom left?

Nah… it’s squashed up like that, yeah, but the text is blockier and more “futuristic” (by which I mean 80s-style futuristic), and is perspectivised (is that a word? It is now!) so that it shrinks into the distance a bit. It was on a tin of beans, I think, and a few other things. I’ll see if I can find a pic later (although I imagine from your not knowing about it that it’s probably hard to come by, so I think you’ve already answered my question!)